


Heavy Hearts Fall Faster (Every Hurt Lasts Longer)

by BarnesnMrNoble



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce is about to get hunted by Natasha, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, M/M, Natasha is a momma bear, Sad with a Happy Ending, Soft Clint Barton, you don't mess with Clint Barton and live to tell the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26119063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarnesnMrNoble/pseuds/BarnesnMrNoble
Summary: Clint and Bruce became fast friends after New York, and the big guy seemed to enjoy Clint’s company as well. He spent a lot of his time finding nests and small, high places to get away from the noise and people. In his ventures, he came across an alcove. It seemed like the perfect place, every time he’d gone there, there had been no one to disturb him and nobody knew where he was.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Clint Barton, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [startrekkingaroundasgard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekkingaroundasgard/gifts).



> For Nicola, and her amazing 5k followers writing challenge! I've never written for Bruce before and never explored the relationship between him and Clint but I've fallen in love while writing this! Anyways, I've gone a smidge over the word count, I'm so sorry but it got away from me!   
> If you enjoy it, let me know! Leave me a comment telling me what you liked, I'd love to hear from you!  
> Title comes from 'Heavy Heart' by Mothica (Go check out her music, I just found her recently and adore it all.)
> 
> #nicolas5kwc

Clint wakes up with little recollection of where he is or how he got there. 

Unfortunately, that’s something that’s not that uncommon in his line of work. At the very least, if someone took him, they had the decency to put him on something relatively comfortable and take his ears out. He’s half tempted to fall back into his blissful sleep, -or unconsciousness. Again, he isn’t totally sure how he got here.- it’s honestly the best sleep he’s gotten in who knows how long. He weighs his options for a moment longer before letting the rational side of his brain win out. 

He rolls himself over, smashing his face into whatever comfy surface is beneath him and heaves a sigh. He really doesn’t have the energy to deal with whatever is waiting for him. Something wacks Clint in the face and he winces, reaching out blindly for whatever it was, which admittedly isn’t the best idea but kidnapped or not Clint hasn’t had coffee yet. His brain functions at two percent until he’s had coffee, enough brain power to make grabby hands at whoever is standing by the coffeemaker. His fingers wrap around the familiar shape of his BTEs and he cracks his eyes open enough to put them in his ears. 

He manages to get them turned on and adjusts to the influx of noise, even if it's relatively quiet. Above the soft music that's playing, Clint hears a smooth voice, “Ah, so he lives. Welcome back to the land of the conscious, doof.” The voice and it’s snark is a welcomed sound, now Clint understands where he is. The how is still in question. Clint finds that he doesn’t really care. “I don’t think we can say that I’m conscious yet, I’m still working on that part. As for the living part? I’m gonna have to disagree.” There’s an inelegant snort and Clint smiles into the cushions of the couch.

Clint’s become rather fond of this couch. Purple, fading, and so ratted he really should throw it out but it’s just so damn comfortable. His heart warms when he remembers why it’s here in Bruce’s lab.

Clint and Bruce became fast friends after New York, and the big guy seemed to enjoy Clint’s company as well. He spent a lot of his time finding nests and small, high places to get away from the noise and people. In his ventures, he came across an alcove. It seemed like the perfect place, every time he’d gone there, there had been no one to disturb him and nobody knew where he was. 

At least he had thought.

For all his spy skills, Clint relatively let his guard down when he was with the team, he felt safe. Clint did still panic about some things, Loki really had fucked with his brain but for all of that, Clint felt a sense of home. Something he hadn’t felt since before his mom had died. He tries not to think about that too much, it’ll lead him down a rabbit hole he doesn’t want to go down. So, when he came to his favorite hiding spot to find a mug of coffee and his favorite kind of bagel, he was surprised to say the least. 

Bruce was the one who showed up a couple hours later bringing a huge thermos of coffee and a sandwich. 

And that’s when Clint realized he’d made a nest in Bruce’s personal lab. 

It was the start of the blossoming friendship for the two of them. Bruce enjoyed having another person in the lab that would listen to his ramblings or just be a comforting presence. Clint often curled up in his corner and listened to Bruce, asked questions when he thought Bruce wanted conversation or when he understood what Bruce was talking about. Eventually it moved past the boundaries of Bruce’s lab, Clint would sit across the table from Bruce as he read the paper and ranted about social issues and that one scientist who keeps getting published for, as Bruce put it, “Unethical, bullshit studies that couldn’t definitively prove anything if it had been handed to them by a well respected scientists.”. He was more than just a bit heated about that one, but Clint would listen with rapt attention as he went, not that he could get a word in edgewise. 

He didn’t mind though. Far from it. 

He enjoyed watching Bruce become passionate, so passionate that if you looked close enough, you’d see the barely there tinge of green around his hairline. Clint enjoyed learning when too much green appeared and he had to step in and cool Bruce down before he started to lose control. He enjoyed watching Bruce’s face as he talked animatedly about the breakthrough he’d had, or that he booked the conference he’d been wanting to talk at for years. Clint learned so much, absorbing it like a sponge. 

He was painting Natasha’s toes, her favorite shade of inky black when the realization set in, “Aw, fuck.” He groaned, unaware that those words had come out of his mouth until Tasha threw a pillow at his head. Her arched brow was enough of a question, one that had Clint trying to piece together enough words to answer it. 

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Natasha chimed in after a moment. Clint’s head shot up and his cheeks were already a rosy red. Clearly, giving him away. “What- uh no, I’m not! Wait, with who?” Across from him, Natasha was shaking with silent laughter as the trainwreck spilled from his mouth. She reaches across to pat his cheek in that way she knows he says he hates but he secretly enjoys. “Yastreb, why deny it? I think you two would be good together. Besides, it’s obvious the feelings are mutual.” Clint just shrugs his shoulders in the defeated way he does, when he thinks he doesn’t deserve the good things people try to give him. She doesn’t think he’s even realized that she had said Bruce was also a bit smitten. 

He finishes painting her last toe, and she gets up to leave, kissing his head as she passes. He knows exactly what she’ll say, so she knows it isn’t needed. At least not right now, he’ll probably need a kick in the ass tomorrow but for now she can let him wallow. He’ll find her if he needs her. 

\--------

As it turns out, he does need a kick in the ass. Unfortunately, Natasha isn’t the one to give him his kick in the ass, and can’t do it anyways with him 3,000 miles away in Dublin. He’s undercover with Finegan Murphy, an Irish scientist that’s using his pub as a front for weapons and drug trafficking. 

She will admit she did like hearing Clint with an irish accent. It was a drastic change from his soft, barely there Brooklyn accent, and from his other rarely seen southern twang. 

He’s gone for three and a half weeks. Natasha watches as Bruce tries to - and fails - to hide his worry about Clint being away. He wasn’t told Clint would be leaving, and hadn’t been able to talk to Clint since he left. 

Lucky for Natasha, the kick in the ass the both of them need to stop their dance around each other came when Clint arrived back home battered but alive. After Natasha got him off the jet, she subtly passed him off to Bruce to go get checked out. 

It was really a win - win, Clint got checked out (and not in medical, where he would’ve whined until they let him go), and it let Bruce release some of his worry that had been stirring for the last month into his mother henning. 

\--------

“Bruce. Bruce, really I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.” Clint, ever the same about being cared for, wiggles away from Bruce as he fusses over the cut along his sternum (Really, what happened to get cut there?). Bruce levels a glare, and seriously Natasha must have been giving lessons now because Clint immediately yields and lets Bruce continue.

“Clearly I do need to worry about you, Clint.” He reaches around Clint to grab another bandage and sighs. There is another cut along his jaw that needs a stitch or two, so he grabs the supplies for that. Clint is still squirming, and Bruce puts a hand on his chest and the other along his jaw. “Clint. Stop moving, the less you move the quicker I finish.” Clint goes still under his touch but Bruce doesn’t miss the shiver of Clint’s muscles under his hand. 

Clint’s breath shudders, and he knows. Knows that after all the dancing around his feelings, all the times wishing that he could be more to Bruce, this is the moment he finally does something about it. He meets Bruce’s eyes, silently asking for any sign that he needs to stop or he might get hulked smashed, he doesn’t see one. “Clint,” his name is a breathy sigh and it’s all Clint needs before his mouth is crashing into Bruce’s learning him like he’s going to have a pop quiz, and praying that he passes. Clint was never into studying, but he’d willingly pull an all nighter for this one. 

Clint can’t help but think about how terrible that line was. He’s glad he didn't say it out loud.

\--------

The moment shatters when the hand still on Clint’s chest pushes away, and Bruce is muttering under his breath. His head is bowed, Clint can’t make out anything he is saying but he can read his body language well enough. “Bruce, I-” He wants to apologize but Bruce cuts him off, “Clint, I-I can’t, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.” 

Bruce bolts off, leaving Clint reeling and feeling maybe the worst he has ever felt. He knew Bruce wouldn’t want him, who would? He was a mess at best, and - well, he’d rather not get into that. He was already feeling pretty down in the dumps about himself. There was no need to launch himself into the dark hole of his own self hatred. He ignores the wetness pooling and threatening to spill. 

“Friday? Where is Tash?”


	2. Chapter 2

Clint gulps the last quarter of his beer, his fifth one in the last hour, when there is a flash from above the door. Natasha knocks but doesn’t wait for Clint to answer and walks in with another case of beer and two pizzas. He smiles and sits up from the couch to give her some room but flops back down once she is settled. 

Clint is a tactile person and Natasha isn’t but she is for Clint. She lets him drape his 6’3” self over her in whatever odd way he finds comfortable this time and runs her hand through his hair, or across his spine. He assumes a similar position, but turns his back to the tv in favor of hiding his face in her stomach. 

“Am I not good enough?” He blurts after a moment. He knows it’s coming but still yelps when Nat’s fingers pinch the skin on the back of his neck. “Clint, Bruce doesn’t know what he’s missing.” She rolls her eyes at his sigh, “Maybe he does, Tash.” 

She ought to kick Bruce into next year.

Natasha stays with Clint until she hears his breathing even out and his soft snores fill the room. She takes his hearing aids out and sets them on the coffee table before heading out. She won’t be gone long. 

\-----------------

“What the hell. Bruce?” Natasha struts into his lab. She has half a mind to start knocking over his things. She disregards his muttered, “Shit, shit!” She gets a bit of joy from seeing the look of pure fear that crosses his face. 

Bruce knows exactly why she is here, he’s spent the last two days thinking about it. He doesn’t know what came over him. He remembers staring into the vast blue oceans of Clint’s eyes, feeling the world stop when they finally closed the distance between them. It was so good, so sweet, so… perfect. And then he had to go and ruin it by panicking and running away. 

He isn’t surprised, he always runs when he gets scared. 

He hates that he was, he loves Clint. He does. Clint has been there through everything. Clint is the one who is the first one there after a code green, offering the shirt of his own back to Bruce to help him cover up until they get back home. Clint is the one that spends his free time in Bruce’s lab listening to him ramble and talk to himself, the one who pulls him away when he gets too stressed or when he goes too long between eating and sleeping. Clint would do anything for Bruce and all he did was push him away when he was at his most vulnerable. 

He knows he deserves whatever Natasha is ready to deal out. 

“You better have a damn good reason.” She seethes. He sputters for a moment, still reeling from his earlier panic. He has enough grace to look remorseful. “I don’t, Natasha. I just- I just panicked, I got scared.” Bruce misses the eye roll from Natasha and goes about straightening the lab. He needs something to do with his hands and it helps distract him from the holes Natasha is burning into him with her glare. 

“That’s not good enough, Bruce. You hurt him, he opened up to you and you took his heart and crushed it. All you have to say for yourself is ‘I panicked?’” Bruce sighs and collapses down on the couch in his lab, the one he brought down for Clint. Which, honestly just rubs salt in the wound but he isn’t going to whine about it now. 

“That’s exactly it, he gave me his heart. I didn’t want-” He struggles to find the words. He doesn’t have to worry, when he hears a familiar voice outside the door to his lab. “Keep it, Bruce. It was always yours anyways.” Bruce tenses at the voice, and utterly deflates. “Clint! Wait, I didn’t mean-” 

He doesn’t get to finish, only gets to watch Clint’s quickly retreating form as he helplessly tries to fix his devastating mistake. Nothing hurts worse than the poorly concealed sniffs he can hear from Clint. Bruce has to fight the Other guy’s response when Natasha comes up behind him, eerily quiet and living up to her assassin name. 

He has been through a lot, but nothing compares to the fear he feels when Natasha speaks, something near pure hatred for Bruce. “Don’t come near him. You’ve done enough.” She walks away with a practiced mask of her emotions, but she emanates every angry, pissed off emotion. The air is too heavy in his lab now, so heavy he can feel it pressing down on his chest. 

It feels like the Other Guy is sitting on his chest. 

____________________

The next few days are awkward. Far more awkward than the time his professor walked in on him naked in the middle of the lab because what he’d been working on blew up and ate away at his clothes. Though, this is a different kind of awkward. 

He’s tried everyday to go talk to Clint, to explain himself and apologize for the massive foot he’s put in his mouth. But everyday he knocks at his door with coffee and a pizza and is greeted with the terrifying site of Natasha in all her angry protective glory. She takes the coffee and pizza and seethes, “Leave.”, shutting the door before Bruce has a chance to plead his case. She is his constant shadow lately, glaring at Bruce whenever he enters a room where Clint is, until he leaves with his tail between his legs. 

It’s been the worst three days Bruce has ever lived. 

____________________________

“Tasha, you’ve got to stop.” Poking her side to hand her coffee and give a half hearted look of disapproval. She just glared Bruce out of the room again. Clint’s been thankful for her protective bubble the past couple days. After he overheard Bruce, Clint wasn’t, he wasn’t okay. To say the least. 

Thoughts he’d long since buried under years of practice, surfaced faster than he could handle them and he spent the first day and a half wrapped around Natasha, sulking and near tears. It was his nightmare, to bare his soul to someone he trusted and have them turn it down, to have them so quickly realize he wasn’t good enough for them. It dredged up too many memories from his father, yelling at him, telling him he wasn’t good enough. That nobody could love a piece of shit like him. 

After that, he’d tried to live life as normal, and maybe a piece of him hoped Bruce would come around to talk to him. It didn’t happen and Clint quickly realized it was Natasha that had taken on a ‘mother bear’ role and chased Bruce away. Still, he was thankful. She’d talked to him and helped him out of his self deprecating mood. 

“Clint, he hurt you. I’m not going to just let him get away with it.” He knew she wouldn’t but she can only punish him for so long before it just becomes tourture. He isn’t going to say that to her, she’d take too much joy in torturing him. “I know,” He just sighs. He isn’t really sure what else to say. He just kisses her cheek and heads out. 

He needs to go to the range.

__________________

He’s been shooting for an hour when there is a flash to his left. “Tash, I love you but you’ve got to give me a little bit of space.” He doesn’t take his eyes off his targets, but nothing hits him in the head, so he doesn’t think its actually Nat. She usually has a pen to throw at his head when he shoots without his aids. 

His breath leaves him when he turns to see who is there. “Bruce.” It comes out too breathy, too soft and not at all portraying the anger he is hoping for. “Clint, I, I wanted to apologize.” Clint hates the part of him that wants to reach out, comfort him, to kiss the worry off his brow but Bruce doesn’t feel that way about him. He stays silent. 

“I never meant, uh, that’s not good. Um,” He is wringing his hands, and Clint can see how much anxiety this is causing him and he lets Bruce continue because after everything, it consoles Clint to see him feel this way. After everything he made him feel. Maybe it’s not the healthiest coping or the least petty option but Clint has never claimed to be either. “I got scared Clint and that’s not an excuse, at all. I just- Clint, I want your heart, I want all you are willing to give me.” Clint winces, the wound is still fresh, hearing Bruce say he wants his heart after he so rudely threw it back in his face, it hurts just as bad. “Bruce, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me that, I don’t want you to want me because you hurt me.” 

Clint is surprising himself with his directness. His usual mode is passive-aggression, maybe Natasha is rubbing off on him. “No, Clint! That’s not what I mean at all. I, uh, I really do like you. I have for a while, but when you kissed me,” Clint braces for the words he hoped to never hear. The dreaded ‘but’. “I panicked, I panicked because I’m a fucking mess and sometimes I just hear this voice that says I’m not good enough.” 

Clint falls back a step from where he was standing, taking a staggering step back and putting his bow down in front of him. “Bruce,” It almost looks as if Bruce is bracing the same way Clint was, ready for the rejection he believes he deserves. “No, Clint, I was scared and I should’ve said something. When I was talking to Natasha, I was trying to say that you gave me your heart and I didn’t want to hurt you because of who I am. I have so much baggage and I didn’t want to burden you with it all.” Bruce gets it out in one breath, and wringing his hands so hard that Clint can see where he has rubbed the skin raw. 

Clint decides he’s had enough, steps forward to grab at Bruce’s hands. Bruce’s eyes meet his, terrified of the rejection but hopeful for the acceptance. “You’re everything I want, Bruce. I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t want you.” He gives a rueful smile down at Bruce. Sometimes he forgets that he has six inches on Bruce, and he relishes in the way Bruce has to look up at him, through his unfairly long eyelashes and the chocolate pools of his eyes.

“But in any case, let me remind you.”

Clint smiles softly and reaches a gentle hand along Bruce’s jaw to pull him in, to close the distance. He does and when their lips meet again, is every bit as wonderful as the first time. Bruce doesn’t push away and get scared and Clint’s worry melts away. 

Everything else melts away too.


End file.
